Asia likely to be core of Putin policy

Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin
may give Asia more weight in foreign policy when he returns to the presidency next year, broadening a relationship with China and trying to bridge differences on gas exports.

Mr Putin, who will meet Chinese President
Hu Jintao
and counterpart
Wen Jiabao
on a two-day trip to Beijing that began yesterday, will take full control of foreign policy again after four years marked by improving ties with the US under outgoing Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev
.

“It’s a landmark visit that will set the nature and vector of the future ­foreign policy of his administration," said Dmitry Mosyakov, director of the Centre for South-East Asia, Australia and Oceania Studies of the Moscow-based Institute of Far Eastern Studies. “In the 1990s, Russia focused on the West while leaving Asia behind, which was a mistake. Now we see ­Russia turning to the East for new markets, new partners and capital."

Mr Putin, who aims to reclaim the Kremlin in May by swapping jobs with Mr Medvedev, is seeking to diversify trade with China and navigate a stalemate in talks on natural-gas deliveries to the world’s second-biggest economy.

The two nations are also determined to counter US global influence. Last week they teamed up to veto a Western-backed United Nations resolution targeted at the crackdown on protests in Syria, a Soviet-era ally of Russia.

With energy accounting for more than half of its exports to China, ­Russia wants to expand economic ties between the two. Mr Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Yury Ushakov, said ­Russia’s trade turnover could exceed $US70 billion by the end of the year, up from $US59 billion in 2010.

“China has become our first trade partner, bypassing Germany, and this is quite symbolic," Mr Ushakov said. “The visit is not only to expand trade and economic contacts but also to diversify the structure of our ­relations."

He said the countries did not plan to sign a gas-pricing deal during the visit, though Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, “will discuss all issues of energy co-operation in the gas and oil sphere". Russia wants to conclude the decade-long negotiations on a gas accord with China, which has been held up by wrangling over how much China will pay for the fuel.